Bury St. Edmunds had one of the most important libraries in medieval England: a late 12th-century catalogue lists about 140 volumes, of which a few dozen survive today. The really exceptional feature that makes this volume stand out from most other 12th-century manuscripts--whether from Bury or elsewhere--is that it retains its original binding, almost completely intact. It allows us a rare chance to see for ourselves what such a book would have looked like to its original 12th-century readers.

At the end of the text, which ends with Book 6, a later Bury scribe (he refers to 'our bookcase of St. Edmund') has noted that there should be further texts: 'Here eight books of Jerome on Ezekiel are lacking, because he wrote 14 books on Ezekiel ...'